Birth of a City

Byline:KELLY HER

Publication Date:11/01/2010

Taipei County, which covers 2,052 square kilometers and claims 3.88 million residents, will be upgraded to special municipality status on December 25 this year. (Photo courtesy of Taipei County Government)

An upgrade in administrative status will transform Taipei County into a special municipality, accelerating the area’s development and consolidating its overall competitiveness.

Upon learning in June 2009 that the Executive Yuan had approved Taipei County’s bid to upgrade its status to that of a special municipality, a change that will formally take place on December 25 this year, many residents of the county were elated, regarding the decision as a case of “belated justice.” The unusual outpouring of excitement at what was ostensibly just an administrative change occurred because a special municipality falls under the direct jurisdiction of the central government, entitling it to a higher level of funding.

“We’ve been waiting for this upgrade for a long time. I’m excited to get to witness that moment,” says 58-year-old Chen Qiu-feng, who was born in Danshui Township, Taipei County and has lived there all her life. “I guess after the upgrade, we’ll see more money put into infrastructure work like road improvements or bridge building. That’s good—we get serious traffic jams because Danshui’s a popular tourist destination.”

Located in northern Taiwan, Taipei County covers 2,052 square kilometers, accounting for 6 percent of the entire area of Taiwan proper. The county controls 10 cities, four urban townships and 15 rural townships and encircles Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan. As of July this year, the county’s population amounted to more than 3.88 million. Come December 25, however, Taipei County will no longer exist, as those living in the area will find themselves residents of a new municipality now being referred to as Xinbei City, although the name could be changed pending the results of opinion polls in the area.

Taipei City and Kaohsiung City, the nation’s two largest cities, were elevated to special municipality status in 1967 and 1979 respectively. Taipei and Kaohsiung’s upgrades were approved by the central government on an individual basis in recognition of their large populations and political, economic and social importance. Following Kaohsiung’s upgrade, however, no new municipalities were named for nearly three decades, causing frustration to rise in Taipei County, where the population was growing rapidly.

In May 2007, however, the Legislative Yuan passed amendments to Article 4 and Article 7 of the Local Government Act, which laid the groundwork for Taipei County to become a “quasi-municipality” in October 2007. This was a step forward, albeit one that stopped short of naming the county a full special municipality with access to full central government funding. The approval for the upgrade to a special municipality finally occurred in June 2009 and was the change that resulted in the wave of happiness in the county.

“For a long time, Taipei County has been so closely linked to Taipei City that the two are seen as constituting a greater Taipei ‘living circle,’” Taipei County Magistrate Chou Hsi-wei says. “However, due to the political system, Taipei County residents have been treated unfairly in terms of access to financial resources and the number of civil servants available to serve them. To improve the situation, I began pushing to upgrade the county’s status after I took office in 2005. The change that is taking place was gained through a lot of hard work.”

The expanding Port of Taipei in Taipei County is likely to become the biggest port and transshipment hub in northern Taiwan. Such large-scale development projects are expected to play a major role in driving Taiwan’s economic growth. (Photo courtesy of Taipei County Government)

In his 2005 election campaign, Chou proposed two possible options for the area: that of merging Taipei City and Taipei County into one entity, and that of upgrading Taipei County into a separate special municipality. His goal was the development of a metropolitan area similar to Tokyo or Shanghai in terms of size and international competitiveness. To advance his big-city dreams, the county magistrate has signed 133 cooperation agreements with Taipei City since he was elected in hopes that closer cooperation would facilitate the realization of the city-county merger.

Despite the agreements, however, Chou notes that the substantial difference between the status of Taipei City and Taipei County in the past has caused difficulties in cooperation. For instance, the annual government budget allocated to Taipei City was nearly double that of Taipei County prior to the latter’s upgrade to quasi-municipality status, despite the fact that the county has a land area eight times larger and had more than 1.1 million additional residents in 2006. Because of its smaller budget, Taipei County also had fewer employees available to work on cooperative projects, while the number of civil servants in the Taipei City Government was three times greater, Chou adds. Another substantial hindrance to merging the two governments, he says, has been the fact that many Taipei City residents are opposed to the idea because of their fear that consolidation could “dilute” the resources they are used to enjoying.

Given these problems, Chou says his administration decided to pursue the upgrade option for Taipei County, albeit with an eye toward gradually narrowing the differences in budget and civil servants in order to reduce resistance to an eventual merger. The county’s 2007 upgrade to quasi-municipality status resulted in its budget growing from NT$75.3 billion (US$2.4 billion) in 2006 to NT$106 billion (US$3.3 billion) this year, enabling it to improve its social welfare programs, education system, environment, infrastructure and promotion of culture and arts.

In the social welfare area, for example, the county’s budget increased from NT$6.9 billion (US$216 million) in 2006 to NT$14.6 billion (US$456 million) this year. The additional funds have been used to subsidize public bus transportation for the elderly, health examinations for elderly farmers and fishermen, eyesight tests for elementary school students, assistance programs for the unemployed, the procurement of specially designed buses for physically challenged people and the elimination of admission fees at five public museums.

As for education, in addition to enhancing existing programs, Chou says his administration has used the increased funding to emphasize the promotion of English education by organizing free, regular English immersion camps for elementary school students. Other new education-related programs have included providing students from poor families with free meals and after-school classes.

Environmental Improvement

Chou is also particularly proud of the improvement in Taipei County’s environment since the quasi-municipality upgrade, as the additional funds have paid for river cleanup projects, tree planting initiatives and various energy-saving programs, together with the construction of parks, bike paths, artificial wetlands, sewerage systems and sewage treatment plants. The magistrate is not alone in his assessment of the county’s improvement, as according to the Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration’s assessment of river cleanup results across the island, Taipei County Government has ranked No. 1 in the country from 2007 through this year. For example, the current condition of the Danshui River, which flows through Taoyuan County, Taipei City and Taipei County before emptying into the Taiwan Strait at Danshui Township, was assessed in 2008 to be at its cleanest in 30 years.

Elementary school students in Taipei County attend a free English immersion camp organized by the county government. (Photo courtesy of Taipei County Government)

Still, despite the quasi-municipality upgrade, Chou says the central government often failed to provide Taipei County with the full budget it was entitled to, thus hindering its ability to plan major public works and hire more civil servants. He and council members soon realized that only upgrading Taipei County to formal special municipality status would provide a comprehensive solution to its budget problem.

Now, with the upgrade to full special municipality status on the way, Xinbei City’s annual budget is expected to rise to NT$150 billion (US$4.7 billion) in 2011, while its number of civil servants is projected to rise from the current 4,154 to 15,400. The administration thus will have more funding to improve infrastructure, operate and create social welfare programs, as well as to employ sufficient personnel to improve the quality of services offered to local residents.

Most of Taiwan’s business and industrial activities are still concentrated in northern Taiwan, Chou says. However, Taipei City has reached the saturation point in terms of population and land available for development, which has made real estate extremely expensive. As a result, over the last few years, about 20,000 Taipei City residents have moved to Taipei County each year in search of a better living environment at a lower cost.

This gradually shifting focus from the saturated city to its surrounding area, along with the formal upgrade in status, make Xinbei City’s future appear bright. “With abundant land, human and financial resources, Xinbei City is likely to command the greatest development potential among Taiwan’s cities and become the locomotive driving national growth,” Chou says. “Its next challenge is how to transform itself into a modern international metropolis. We need to work hand in hand with other major cities around the world on issues of common concern like climate change and environmental protection, which will also have the benefit of helping to increase Taiwan’s international visibility.”

Huang Jui-mao is the board chairman of the Organization of Urban Re’s (OURs), a nongov-ernmental organization dedicated to reviewing, redesigning, re-planning and rebuilding urban areas. In Huang’s view, Taipei County used to be a “dormitory town” that was primarily residential, with most of the workforce commuting to Taipei City to earn a livelihood. In recent years, however, many changes have taken place in Taipei County, he says, with commercial and industrial activities intensifying and the number of department stores, restaurants, recreational facilities and shops of all kinds increasing. The county can now be described as an “urban village,” he says, as it has become a highly self-contained area where people can live, work and recreate. The new amenities and rising activity level make Taipei County well qualified for an upgrade in administrative status, Huang says.

In recent years, Taipei County has been transformed from a dormitory town into a self-contained area where people can live, work and recreate. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

Although Xinbei City will become a reality on December 25, Huang still believes that as Taipei City and Taipei County are in such close proximity, integrating them into a single metropolitan area would have been more efficient. As an example, a merger would mean that only one administrative entity would be involved in planning for common environmental issues like river cleanup, as well as flood and pollution control. As it stands now, government agencies in Xinbei City and Taipei City will have to cooperate on such shared problems.

Like Chou Hsi-wei, Huang also believes that the Taipei metropolitan area will someday be governed by one administrative entity. If that is to be the eventual case, he says, immediate integration would have been a less costly alternative than first upgrading Taipei County to Xinbei City and then conducting the merger at some later date. A large amount of administrative time, paperwork and new signage has been required for Xinbei City, he notes, and that work would have to be repeated for a merger.

Huang is a realist, however, and says now that Xinbei City is slated to become a special municipality, its future mayor should focus on promoting the area’s culture. “Grand construction is not what Taipei is good at,” Huang says. “How can it compete with Shanghai or Singapore in that area? But Taipei is widely recognized by [ethnic] Chinese people as the best place to live, and that can be attributed to its accumulation of rich cultural assets.”

The goal, Huang says, is for Xinbei City to move away from manufacturing to become a post-industrial city, emphasizing not only culture, but also the arts, ecology, services and the cultivation of high-end talent. In fact, other cities in Taiwan should emphasize those same areas, he says, as they are where the island’s competitive niches lie.

On another front, Huang notes that international affairs and exchange activities were conducted on the national level in the past, but in recent years a number of cities have taken an active role in those fields as well. Although political realities sometimes preclude Taiwan’s participation in international affairs, there is nothing to prevent its cities from working to increase their presence in the international arena, he says.

Long Overdue

Kao Yuang-kuang, director of the Taiwan Studies Center at National Chengchi University, says that considering its population, land resources and existing political, economic, cultural and metropolitan development, Taipei County is long overdue for an upgrade to its administrative status. Like Huang, Kao argues that it would have been more efficient and cost effective to merge Taipei City and Taipei County in one step, instead of first creating Xinbei City and then moving toward eventual integration, as both administrative changes are enormous, complicated tasks requiring plenty of time and coordination. Kao also notes that in the future, if the heads of Taipei City and Xinbei City were to belong to different political parties, they might not be able to cooperate with each other closely, thus hindering the overall development of the Taipei area.

Children enjoy cycling on a dedicated bike lane in Taipei County. (Photo courtesy of Taipei County Government)

In fact, Kao goes beyond calling for the county’s cooperation and merger with Taipei City, as he believes Taiwan needs to create a powerful city to serve as an engine leading the development of the rest of the island. In this regard, he says it would be better for the central government to integrate Taipei City, Taipei County and Keelung City further to the north into a “Greater Taipei,” which would enhance administrative efficiency and boost the metropolis’ prospects of becoming a world-class city.

Kao cites the Northern Taiwan Development Commission, which was established in November 2005 and is administered by authorities from eight city and county governments, as an early step toward such integration. The commission’s work to enhance cooperation in the areas of environmental resources, industrial development, leisure and recreation, transportation and logistics, cultural education and disaster prevention provides a good model for other regional alliances, he says. The university director says he hopes the Executive Yuan will upgrade the commission’s status by giving it a legal basis in the Local Government Act, which would allow it to act as a virtual regional government and play a more influential role in leading the region. He also advocates setting up similar commissions in the central and southern parts of the island, which would help to balance development throughout Taiwan.

For now, Kao says there is plenty of coordination work to do in the area, regardless of whether there are two special municipalities or one regional mega-city. “The future planning for developing Xinbei City in the aspects of housing, recreation and commercial and manufacturing activities must be coordinated with that of Taipei City, no matter what their administrative designations are,” Kao emphasizes. “Also, in terms of infrastructure, the two must work together to build a more convenient transportation network through the proper connection of highway, railway and rapid transit systems to increase overall regional prosperity.”

Shiau Chyuan-jenq, a professor in the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University, says that in the era of globalization, a city must make its presence felt internationally. It can do so by expanding its scale, conducting exchanges with other entities in the international community, keeping abreast of major political and economic changes around the world and advancing its country’s interests. Shiau believes that currently, Taiwan’s two existing special municipalities—Taipei City and Kaohsiung City—are still largely focused on their own affairs and are not active enough in cultivating external relations.

In 2008, the Environmental Protection Administration judged the Danshui River, which flows through Taipei County before emptying into the Taiwan Strait, to be at its cleanest in 30 years. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

Shiau says that upgrades or mergers are essential as Taiwan seeks to expand the scale of its metropolitan areas. The question, as he sees it, is not about whether to upgrade or merge, but rather about which localities should do so and how many of them should be included in the plan. As far as Xinbei City is concerned, Shiau thinks that upgrading Taipei County to special municipality status was a good move because the city’s new administration can step up local development by relying on its increased workforce and central government funding. Meanwhile, Xinbei City can work with Taipei City, which has limited space available for growth, to create an international-class metropolis, he says. The timing for a merger could be right in a few years, when Xinbei City is better developed and has an infrastructure, personnel and administrative services comparable to those of Taipei City. That would help to persuade the majority of Taipei citizens to approve such a move, Shiau says.

Outgoing Taipei County Magistrate Chou Hsi-wei expects Xinbei City to feature a wide range of cultural, historical and natural attractions, as well as large-scale development projects like the growing Port of Taipei. Such features will play a big role in driving Taiwan’s economic growth and international participation, he says. “Taipei County has undergone a substantial transformation during my tenure,” Chou says. “Now it’s a more livable, prosperous and environmentally friendly place. It’s my sincere hope that by means of proper city planning and partnership with Taipei City, Xinbei City can eventually turn into a green, global city.”